C.S. Lewis published Out of the Silent Planet in 1938.
The novel is the first volume of Lewis’s Space Trilogy, also known as the Ransom Trilogy. Its protagonist, philologist Elwin Ransom, is abducted and taken to Malacandra, a planet later understood by readers to be Mars. Lewis combines planetary adventure with questions about language, culture, morality, and humanity’s place in the universe.
Out of the Silent Planet was published by John Lane, The Bodley Head. The two later books in the trilogy are Perelandra, published in 1943, and That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. They continue Ransom’s encounters with cosmic and earthly forces.
The book is sometimes categorized only as fantasy because of Lewis’s later fame as a Narnia author, but it is a major work of early modern science fiction. Its extraterrestrial setting and philological concerns distinguish it from his children’s fiction.